About This Project

Afghan Aid Ledger

What this is, why it exists, and how to use it · Updated 21 July 2026

← back to the ledger

A public accounting book that anyone can open. Not a charity website, not a government portal, not an opinion blog — just the evidence, and the honest gaps.

What is this?

The Afghan Aid Ledger keeps track of international aid to Afghanistan — money promised, money actually paid, who handled it, where it went, and where the paper trail simply stops. Every number on the site links back to an official source you can check yourself.

Why was it created?

Since the Taliban took over in August 2021, the international community has reported billions of dollars in aid for Afghans. Three uncomfortable questions kept coming up with no good answer:

  1. How much actually reached ordinary Afghans — and how much stopped somewhere along the way?
  2. How much ended up benefiting the Taliban — through taxes, fees, forced payments, or interference?
  3. How much was absorbed by the aid system itself — consultants, headquarters, security, travel — and is that cost ever disclosed?
The honest answer to all three is: nobody fully knows, because the institutions involved don't publish enough data. That is exactly what this ledger makes visible. Where the data exists, we show it. Where it doesn't, we show the hole — because “we are not allowed to know” is itself a finding worth publishing.

Who is it for?

You are…The ledger helps you…
An Afghan citizen or in the diasporasee what was funded in your name, where, by whom — and ask why your province got less
A journalisttrace a claim to original documents, download the data, embed a verified chart in your article
A researcher or studentget clean, cited, machine-readable data instead of scraping PDFs
A donor official or parliamentariansee which channels disclose their spending and which do not
An aid organizationcheck how your disclosure compares to peers — and improve your score by publishing better data
An auditor or investigatorstart from documented, hash-preserved evidence with clear scope limits

The rules that make it trustworthy

  1. Never mix money stages. A pledge (promise), a commitment (signed deal), a payment, and a transfer down the chain can all describe the same dollars. Adding them together produces an impressive, meaningless number. Every figure on the site says which stage it is.
  2. Confirmed minimums, never guesses. The “money to the Taliban” figure only counts events proven by published audits. We never extrapolate — the headline says “at least this much, documented”, not “probably this much”.
  3. Missing data is a finding, not a zero. If an agency doesn't reveal where money went next, we don't pretend it was delivered — we count it as undisclosed and say so.
  4. No accusations without evidence. Organizations are ranked by how much they disclose, never by rumor. Anyone named has a right of reply before publication.

A tour of the website

The page reads top to bottom like a document of record, in twelve numbered sections:

I. The Account
The headline numbers: promised vs actually paid, year by year, plus the funding-gap bars — in 2021 the humanitarian plan was ~96% funded; in 2026 it is ~21%. Year buttons filter everything.
II. Who Gives
Donors ranked by what they actually paid (not what they announced).
III. Who Receives & Passes On
The first stop for the money — and how much each recipient reports passing onward. The difference is usually undisclosed, and we label it exactly that.
IV. The Money Trail
Type any organization's name and see money flowing in and out. Example: Afghanistan Humanitarian Fund — $808M in, $476M reported onward, every counterparty listed.
V. Disclosure Scorecards
Each major recipient scored 0–100 on five published criteria. Low score ≠ corruption. Low score = we can't see.
VI. What Reaches the Taliban
The register of documented benefit: the US$10.9M minimum confirmed by the US inspector-general (SIGAR), documented interference, and what remains unresolved — each entry links to the audit itself.
VII. The Cost of Delivery
Currently an honest empty box: no agency publishes programme-level costs in usable form. The empty box is the finding.
VIII. Where It Goes, By Sector
Food, health, education… including the embarrassingly large “(not reported)” category.
IX. Geographic Equity
People in need vs aid organizations present, province by province.
X. Requests for Accountability
Specific questions to specific institutions, each grounded in a finding, with deadlines and response status. “Prepared” means drafted and not yet sent — this tracker never claims correspondence that didn't happen.
XI. Sources & Freshness
Where every number comes from and when we last checked. “Real time” honestly means “as current as the source allows”.
XII. Reuse This Data
Embeddable charts, CSV downloads, a free open API, and an RSS feed of changes.

How to work with it — three everyday workflows

If you just want answers (no technical skills needed)

  1. Open the site. Read section I for the big picture.
  2. Curious about one organization? Type its name in section IV.
  3. Want your article or post to carry a chart? Section XII → copy the iframe → paste into your CMS. The chart stays live and cites its source automatically.
  4. Want updates? Subscribe to the RSS feed (section XII).

If you are a journalist or researcher

  1. Download the dataset you need from section XII (CSV opens in Excel).
  2. Every row keeps the original FTS flow ID — click through to the UN's own record.
  3. Quote the scorecards or the traceability figure; the criteria are published, so your fact-checkers can reproduce the number.
  4. Found an error? Every correction is logged publicly — nothing is silently edited.

If you operate the ledger (the team)

  1. Refresh the data: run python -m app.ingest_fts (money flows) and python -m app.ingest_hdx (needs & presence). Each run saves raw snapshots so every number stays reproducible.
  2. Send an accountability request: send the prepared request from section X through an official channel, then update its status to sent with a deadline. When the deadline passes: answered, refused, or no_response_by_deadline — all public.
  3. Add evidence: new audits are entered as cited events with scope limits — never as extrapolations.
  4. Never bypass the review rules: nothing naming an organization goes public without evidence and right of reply.

What the data already reveals

  1. The money is drying up. Humanitarian plan funding fell from 96% covered (2021) to 21% (2026 so far) — a gap of about $1.4 billion this year.
  2. The paper trail stops at the first stop. Less than 1% of paid contributions have an officially linked onward transfer. After the money reaches a UN agency or large NGO, the public record effectively goes dark.
  3. Hundreds of millions are anonymous. Large sums are reported only as going to “UN Agencies (Confidential)” or “International NGOs (Confidential)” — with zero onward reporting.
  4. A large share of aid has no declared purpose. “(not reported)” competes with food and health among the biggest sector categories.
  5. Taliban benefit is documented but understated. US$10.9M in taxes and fees is the confirmed minimum from one audit sample — the auditors themselves say the real figure is higher because UN subrecipients never reported their payments.

Each of these has a matching accountability request in section X of the ledger.

What we deliberately did NOT build

What's next

  1. Connect the IATI database (donor activity reports) to extend the money trail below the first recipient.
  2. Automatic daily refresh with change alerts in the RSS feed.
  3. Actually send the prepared accountability requests and track responses publicly.
  4. Pashto and Dari versions — the interface is ready for right-to-left text; translations await human review.
  5. Extract cost data from audit PDFs (with human review) to finally fill section VII.

Technical appendix (for developers)